Hundreds of years
ago the church had a festival called 'Rogation Sunday'. It was a day when the priest, in his
robes, accompanied by all the villagers, went around the boundaries of each parish.
Later this procession became known as the parish 'perambulation', or 'beating
the bounds'. In the 19th century, even in many large towns, the vicar, the
mayor, the people - and crowds of children - would tramp around the exact
boundary line of their village or town. If there was a hedge in the way of the
line - they broke it down. If a house was built across the boundary line - then
a window was broken and the mayor's mace passed through. If the boundary ran
along the middle of a river, then the vicar and mayor would be put in a boat
and would row along it. Often, at various points, boys would be 'bumped' (so
that "they would well remember the bounds of the parish within which they
dwell"). What on earth was all this in aid of?

The whole idea
began well before Christianity. The Romans had a festival called the 'robigalia' in which the people went through their fields
and prayed to the gods to protect their crops. They especially prayed to the
god known as 'Terminus' - the god of fields and boundaries. When Christianity
became the religion of Europe the festival continued, although Jesus now was
the focus of prayers. A cross was carried around the boundary line, at various
points the Bible was read or prayers said (the place where this was done was often
called 'Gospel Oak/Thorn' or 'Amen Corner' - is there anywhere near you with a
name like this?). The purpose, though, was the same as in Roman times - to ask
God's blessing on the crops and to check that no-one had trespassed in any way
across the border of each parish. In some places, mainly in country parishes,
this procession still exists.

Yes, we all need
boundaries... and yet are they always a good thing? When Jesus was alive there
was a rigid boundary between Jews and Samaritans (who were Jews who thought
that sacrifices could be made to God in places other than the temple at
Jerusalem); even when they lived next to each other they would not have
anything to do with each other. Once Jesus was sitting by a Samaritan well. He
was thirsty. A Samaritan woman came up to draw water.

JESUS:Could I have a drink of water please?

WOMAN:What! Are you talking to me? Jews never talk
to Samaritans - let alone share a cup with them!

JESUS:I'd still like a drink of water. Anyway, if
you knew who I was, then you'd be asking me for a drink. I can give you 'living
water' - water that satisfies the spirit, not just the body! And a time is
coming soon when Samaritans and Jews won't argue about which mountain to
worship God on - everyone, whoever they are, will worship God in their hearts.

Jesus doesn't seem
to have been too impressed by the boundary between Jews and Samaritans! In
fact, it turns out that the Samaritans were more interested in what Jesus had
to say than people in his own home-town were.

The area of the
world we live in is very rich. Many people want to come and live here - some
are driven by danger in their own country - some are driven by poverty. There
are lots of newspaper reports of crowds of people trying to cling on to the
trains that pass through the Channel tunnel from France to England. Other
people try to hide in lorries. There have been several cases of such people
smothering to death, trapped inside closed lorries. And it's not just people
trying to get into Britain. In southern Europe people try to sneak across the
Mediterranean - some using home-made rafts. Many have drowned - their bodies
washed onto tourist beaches.

Many in Britain
and Europe are angry with these people: how dare they try to come here and take
our jobs. What do you think? We all need boundaries - inside which we feel safe
and can get on with living happy lives - but what about the people shut
outside, often frightened and hungry? What do you think Jesus would have said?

PRAYER:

Thank you, Father, for our homes and our
families.

Thank you for a place where we can feel
safe.

Thank you for all the things we own which
make our life comfortable.

We ask that you will help those people who
feel locked out from

a place where they can feel safe and where
they can live in comfort.

May our country play its part in helping
people who are outside

the borders of safety and comfort which we
take for granted.

MORE
HISTORY

Beating the
Bounds, May 1st or more usually after Rogation Sunday. A custom dating from the
5th century when parishioners asked for God's blessing to protect their crops.
During the Reformation walking the parish boundary became a more important part
of the ceremony as it provided the community with a mental map which could be
drawn on in disputes over boundaries. Celebrated with Ganging Beer and Rammalation biscuits.

ROGATION
SUNDAY

This Sunday was
originally so called because of the words in the Prayer Book gospel for the
day: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give to you". (The
Latin is 'Rogare' - to ask.) In the strictly biblical
context, the chief thing to ask for is the spirit of God to enable us to be
true children of God.

By the 17th
century, the old Roman festival of 'Terminalia",
or "boundaries", had been adapted by the church and served a
practical purpose. In days before Ordnance Survey maps, there were not always
clear lines of demarcation between the parishes, especially where there were
open field systems. During the procession, boys were bumped on prominent marks
and boundary stones, or rolled in briars and ditches, or thrown in the pond to
ensure they never forgot the boundaries. The Victorians made it more civilised
by beating objects rather than people, in the context of a service and
procession.

In the Western
Church, processions to bless the crops and to include "beating the
bounds", developed from the o1d Roman rites of "Robigalia"
("robigo": Latin for "rust" or
"mould"), when prayers would be offered to the deity for crops to be
spared from mildew.

These rogation
themes of blessing the fields and beating the bounds were commended in the
1630s by the poet George Herbert, that epitome of English country parsons. He
said that processions should be encouraged for four reasons:

1 .A Blessing of
God for the fruits of the field.

2.Justice in the
preservation of bounds.

3.Charity in
loving, walking and neighbourly accompanying one another with reconciling of
differences at the time if there be any.

4.Mercie, in
relieving the poor by a liberal distribution of largesse, which at the time is
or ought to be used.

Today the
emphasis has shifted. A blessing on growing crops in fields and gardens, and on
young lambs and calves remain. In the agricultural cycle, the main themes are
seed sowing and the tending of the young plants and animals. This does not
pre-suppose that all sowing takes place around Rogation. Sowing is done all the
year round, as is the birth and rearing of the young, but it is convenient to
fix on one particular festival as the time to remember these before God in a
public way.

Rogation takes
place in the springtime, when there is a renewing of the earth. In this
country, it follows Easter, the season of resurrection. Renewal and
resurrection therefore are also underlying themes of this occasion.

Contemporary
concerns will include:-

1.The enjoyment
by all of, and access to, the countryside.

2.Conservation of
species not directly offering economic profit to the owner or occupier of the
land where they flourish.

3.The ecological
insight of the inter-relatedness of the created order.

4.Reflection upon
human-kind's relationship to the natural order. What does it mean to "have
dominion" under God over the fish in the sea, the birds of the air, the
cattle, the wild animals, and the reptiles, the plants bearing seed, the trees
bearing fruit, the green plants? Are the words 'stewards' or 'managers'
appropriate to describe this role?